MINSTER — On its surface, the village of Minster may seem somewhat unassuming nestled in the southwest corner of Auglaize County. However, the village has been gaining attention at the national level for its innovation in working with renewable energy, especially solar.
Earlier this month, the village’s “Solar + Storage” project, operated by Chicago-based S&C Electric Co. on behalf of the village-administered electric utility, was recognized as the Energy Storage North America 2016 Centralized Storage Project Innovation Award winner. The project involves a nearly 18-acre, 4.2-megawatt direct-current solar array used by the village’s electric grid, along with a 7-megawatt lithium ion solar energy storage system, built in conjunction with Chicago-based Half Moon Ventures.
“We are the first public utility in the United States to put those two components together and make it happen,” Minster Village Administrator Don Harrod said. “The solar array has been up since December of last year and the batteries went online in March. What we’re basically doing is that we have an agreement with the investor to buy the power from the solar.”
Having the solar energy in battery backup form can help the village offset power consumption during peak demand hours, according to Harrod, who said energy savings between May 2017 and June 2018 will be about $120,000 overall, according to estimates.
“It’s really worked well in the summer when it was so hot and energy consumption was up,” he said. “We don’t have to pay transmission costs because it’s tied into our own system.”
Using solar as well as battery storage has produced another benefit, according to S&C Electric Director of Grid Solutions Troy Miller.
“They’ve got some large industrial customers with a larger power factor,” he said. “They were about to purchase some power factor correction equipment, basically large capacitors they could hook online to push up their power factor so they would not get fined for having a bad power factor. Instead of buying that equipment, they are correcting that issue through energy storage.”
In using solar energy, hydro energy from the Ohio River and wind energy from Blue Creek Wind Farm in Van Wert County, Minster’s electric utility obtains 42 percent of its electric production via renewable sources.
“It really is the future,” Harrod said. “We’re just trying to be ahead of the curve.”
.neFileBlock {
margin-bottom: 20px;
}
.neFileBlock p {
margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
}
.neFileBlock .neFile {
border-bottom: 1px dotted #aaa;
padding-bottom: 5px;
padding-top: 10px;
}
.neFileBlock .neCaption {
font-size: 85%;
}
